Are you familiar with Compassion Fatigue?

This is like sucking out the pain and suffering of a certain persons, related to medical condition. It is how you deliver the good or the bad news of a certain illness inflicted with.

This is something that I did go through when I was working at the hospital. Working with a large pool of patients, there were a lot of people that needed care and it was something that was natural for me to be able to give out. However, the stress of it did get to be too much for me at times. In fact, it was because of the stress of being compassionate that I did end up leaving that line of work after having only worked in the field for a little bit over a year and a half. It definitely is hard work to show compassion for other people that you encounter in your life.

Iknow exactly what you mean, but I didn't know it had a name. Since I am a major care giver for may family and friends I know that time spent in this occupation is very stressful and unless you are taking care of yourself it is easy to experience burn out. For me Hospice has often been the blessing that has saved me from total exhaustion. Ihope you all have such service when needed.

Yes, sometimes it's good when we can help our co-workers when they are suffering from something. However, if we experience it everyday, like we hear their complaints every day, it's already like a burden to us. We also wish to have a peaceful mind. Free from stress. I sometimes don't want to hearfrom them anymore. I am absorbing their problems.

Interesting term. I'm not "familiar" with the term, but I think I can relate to it. Is this a term only used when the fatigue is severe - that it's actually causing actual "illness" to your body? I've experienced burn out from certain friends who have come to me when they were down. I wouldn't say they were exactly suffering, but they were going through bad times. The problem (like most of the time) was they kept talking my ear off about their woes and they didn't do a thing to fix the situation no matter advice I gave them . . . so I heard the same old story over and over and over again. But I didn't get sick over them, I just got sick OF them - ha ha.

You left out the end result which is eventually becoming less compassionate. This is just a new term for the old one which is jaded. The definition of jaded is tired or bored or lacking enthusiasm but in my 40 years I have heard it used more in terms of empathy, or rather, declining empathy. I don't know why people feel the need to create new words, terms for old ones. The word jaded, been around long before the people who created 'compassion fatigue."